Here’s SingPost’s grand plan to rule ecommerce in Asia

Here’s SingPost’s grand plan to rule ecommerce in Asia

March 5, 2014

by Terence Lee

As snail mail fades in relevance, the US Postal Service is sinking along with it. But SingPost (SPOS.SI), the Singapore equivalent which is privately-run rather than government-driven, has avoided the same fate. Read more of this post

Bill Gross’ Conditional Love for Risk

TUESDAY, MARCH 4, 2014

Bill Gross’ Conditional Love for Risk

By WILLIAM H. GROSS  | MORE ARTICLES BY AUTHOR

If central banks can keep their “cred,” risk assets can outperform cash in 2014, writes the Pimco executive.

Turning and turning in the widening gyre 
The falcon cannot hear the falconer; 
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;

— William Butler Yeats, 1919

Almost permanently affixed on the whiteboard of Pimco’s Investment Committee boardroom is a series of concentric circles, resembling the rings of a giant redwood, although in this case exhibiting an expanding continuum of asset classes with the safest in the center and the riskiest on the outer circles. Read more of this post

Bitcoin’s digital tip jar: Microtransactions reborn; The digital currency’s low transaction costs may revive a long-frustrated online content model — the paywall

Bitcoin’s digital tip jar: Microtransactions reborn

March 5, 2014: 5:00 AM ET

The digital currency’s low transaction costs may revive a long-frustrated online content model — the paywall.

By David Z. Morris

FORTUNE — Since the mid 1990s, vendors have dreamed of being able to sell music, news, games, and other digital goods online for tiny amounts that would in theory add up to big revenue. But structural barriers including fees from payments processors have stymied the model for nearly two decades, leaving publishers to rely on meager advertising, underperforming subscription models, and expensive centralized stores from Amazon, Apple, and Google. Read more of this post

Organic Food Set to Become a Big Market In Indonesia, Food Expert Says

Organic Food Set to Become a Big Market In Indonesia, Food Expert Says

By Vanesha Manuturi on 10:23 pm March 4, 2014.
Jakarta. The founder of the World Gourmet Summit has said he believes organic produce will be the next big trend in Indonesia’s food and beverage business. Read more of this post

Redouble efforts to transform SMEs in Singapore, says Tharman

Redouble efforts to transform SMEs in Singapore, says Tharman

POSTED: 05 Mar 2014 21:29
Efforts to transform small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Singapore have to be redoubled in the next decade, said Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Finance Tharman Shanmugaratnam in Parliament on Wednesday. Read more of this post

Emerging, but No Longer a Mother Lode of Profits; A number of multinational corporations have recently blamed turmoil in emerging markets for dents in their bottom lines

Emerging, but No Longer a Mother Lode of Profits

By LANDON THOMAS Jr.MARCH 4, 2014

When it comes to investing in emerging markets, few companies have been as gung-ho as Diageo, the British maker of the Guinness, Johnnie Walker and Smirnoff brands. But now that troubles are cropping up in many such countries around the world, Diageo has turned from cheerleader to excuse-monger. Read more of this post

Fraud Within Companies Is A Risk That Can Never Be Eliminated, Just Managed

Fraud Within Companies Is A Risk That Can Never Be Eliminated, Just Managed

THE ECONOMIST STRATEGY  MAR. 5, 2014, 2:50 AM

Business has always been plagued by fraud: witness the South Sea Company in the 1710s (which enveloped the British economy in a giant bubble) or Charles Ponzi’s Securities Exchange Company in 1920 (which gave the world the Ponzi scheme) or the Enron and WorldCom scandals in the early 2000s. Read more of this post

India’s gold industry to strike in protest over crackdown

March 4, 2014 10:40 am

India’s gold industry to strike in protest over crackdown

By Avantika Chilkoti in Mumbai

India’s gold industry is planning a one-day strike next week in protest over government efforts to control smuggling, as moves to curb imports fuel illicit trade in the world’s second-largest market for gold. Read more of this post

Migrants set up one in seven UK companies, study reveals

March 4, 2014 6:40 pm

Migrants set up one in seven UK companies, study reveals

By Jonathan Moules, Enterprise Correspondent

Migrant entrepreneurs have created one in every seven UK companies, according to the first comprehensive analysis of official data about founder origins. Read more of this post

Return on equity and Soviet tractor production

Return on equity and Soviet tractor production

March 4, 2014 3:07 pmby Andrew Smithers

The financial information published by companies has become increasingly bogus in recent years, because of the huge incentive for modern management to produce highly volatile profits. This has been helped by the increased flexibility allowed with the change from “mark to cost” to “mark to market”. Read more of this post

High-end hoodies unmask reality of Asean’s ‘promise’; Doing business in the region means bridging the gap between rhetoric and reality

March 4, 2014 5:00 pm

High-end hoodies unmask reality of Asean’s ‘promise’

By Jeremy Grant

Doing business in the region means bridging the gap between rhetoric and reality

If you are a garment manufacturer and want to sell your upmarket hooded sweatshirt in Indonesia, you are probably on to a good thing. Read more of this post

The Asian work ethic comes at a price; Modern Chinese are increasingly worried about being pushed too hard

March 4, 2014 3:54 pm

The Asian work ethic comes at a price

By Patti Waldmeir in Shanghai

Modern Chinese are increasingly worried about being pushed too hard, writes Patti Waldmeir

China’s state media recently reported that 600,000 mainlanders die every year from working too hard. Taken at face value, that would mean that 600,000 people a year face the same fate as may have befallen Moritz Erhardt, the Bank of America intern whose death in London last summer – possibly caused by overwork – triggered an industry-wide crisis of conscience over whether western bankers need to be more slothful. Read more of this post

Italian finance: Time to modernise; ‘Stress tests’ will count for little until the vast network of local banks is overhauled and governance reformed

March 4, 2014 6:57 pm

Italian finance: Time to modernise

By Rachel Sanderson

‘Stress tests’ will count for little until the vast network of local banks is overhauled and governance reformed

As the tourist season was heating up last summer in the southern Italian region of Puglia, officials from the Bank of Italy seized control of a small co-operative bank in Alberobello, the sun-baked town known for its whitewashed trulli houses. Read more of this post